


All You Wanted

by ailes_de_cire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Crossover, Deage, Don't Take Seriously, F/M, Female Harry, For Fun Only, Gen, Genderbending, Genderswap, M/M, Merge, New School, Out of Character, Seigaku, Veela
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailes_de_cire/pseuds/ailes_de_cire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accident at the Ministry caused fem!Harry to get the hell out of England. What she didn't plan on was being harrassed to look up a distant relative by well-meaning sadistic friends, or that she'd be attending... Middle School.</p><p>Warning: This Is An Experiment. I decided to grab the weirdest plotline that I could possibly think up, put it together and then try to make a vaguely respectable story out of it, hopefully avoiding creating a dreaded Mary-Sue, Bad!Story or a WTF? Story.</p><p>So, Basically: Enter At Your Own Risk (to Sanity, Life and Everything)</p><p>Also, this story was previously posted to ffnet under my penname there, go check that out I've left a note</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fix You

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in summary, this is an experiment in combining plot devices and merging them in an attempt to create a respectable story. I strongly believe this is impossible, but I guess I'm giving it a good try anyway.
> 
> So basically, these are the main plot devices/stereotypes that I picked- AU, fem!Harry, veela!Harry, Against!Creatures Government, Escape!Britain, De!Aged, and Random!Relative from the cannon of the crossover universe.
> 
> I chose to cross Harry Potter over with the Prince of Tennis because… well, just because. The genre needed more stories, so meh.

"Okay, so – what's the plan?"

"To live full and… happy… lives?" A girl responded sarcastically, looking up at the woman who had stated the rather obvious question, which actually wasn't a question at all and really just a prompt for her to repeat the stupid plan that was filled with stupidity, which the girl definitely did not want to do. So what did she do? She mocked.

"Oh yeah, that's a great idea! We should definitely do that, 'Mione!" The lone male in the room supported, apparently completely missing the interplay between his companions.

'Mione growled. "Ronald Bilius Weasley! You are supposed to be on MY SIDE! Don't let her drag you into distracting me! And Analeigh Potter! This is NO LAUGHING MATTER! We are talking about your family! If anything, you should be the one worried about this!"

"Hermione, you're acting just a little neurotic…" The girl named Analeigh muttered, leaning back in her chair.

"N- NEUR-! I-I can't believe you!" Hermione spluttered, her bushy brown hair frizzling in indignation.

"Wha-"

"-'Neurotic' pretty much means anxious, hung-up, fixated… you know, like how Hermione's acting right now, right Ron?"

The red-haired man looked consideringly at his fuming wife's glare; "You know what Lee? I think I'm gonna shut up now."

Hermione smiled at Ron for the good call, and the girl made the obligatory 'whipped' hand gesture behind her back, only without the accompanying sound. The man's ears went red when he caught it, but he still looked mostly pleased with himself.

The Potter in the room coughed awkwardly after a moment. "Are you guys done with the whole 'oh-my-gosh' married-couple mushy routine now?"

Now they were both blushing, but Lee considered that an improvement over her two best friends making mushy-eyes at each other bare feet away from her position. Hermione coughed. "What were we… oh. Oh! Lee, please do not sidetrack me any more! You need the plan – I'm doing this for you!"

The girl ran a chagrined hand through her curly hair and stared at a scratch mark in the wood on the table. "Well… fine. But I'm not going to need a plan! It's a stupid plan anyway!"

Hermione continued pacing from where she had left off, running a frustrated hand through her hair. "Why? What's the problem with it? All you have to do is go to the house, ring the doorbell, and introduce yourself! See, it's a simple plan!"

Analeigh – or Lee, as she preferred – huffed an exasperated breath; "So what? I just show up on her doorstep and say 'hey, you know that sister that you hated but died ages ago? Well, she had two daughters who have also died, but don't feel sad because I'm one of their daughters and I've creepily found out where you lived and moved here so that we could rustle up a family reunion! Aren't you so happy?"

Now two frowns were being directed at her and she looked away, not particularly in the mood to have all of her insecurities dragged into the room. "Lee, I don't think it'll go that bad." Ron offered tentatively to his distressed friend, but resisted reaching over to comfort her physically. When Lee got like that – talking about blood relatives – she was very finicky about being touched. Even if she hadn't even met the woman that they'd found out was a distant relative through the Evans line, she seemed very affected by her childhood with the Dursleys, even though they had died when they'd refused wizard protection during the war.

"And how am I exactly supposed to prove it anyway?" Lee continued angrily, looking back at them. "It's not like I have any pictures of a grandmother I've never met! And I can't use any pictures of Lily, because the woman never even met her – she might not even know that her sister had children in the first place! And look, even if she did know about Lily, and even if I do show her the pictures, she'll still not believe me! Because I mean…" And she waved bluntly at herself, yanking at curly blonde locks and wincing.

Both of the adults in the room winced at the vicious self-treatment and shared a quick look. "I-it's not so bad Lee…" Ron offered weakly, this time reaching over and putting a comforting hand on her slim shoulder.

Emerald eyes pinned him with a look that clearly stated her disagreement. "I'm… I'm a…t-te… God, I can't even say it." The girl finished despairingly, slumping.

"I believe the word that you are looking for is 'teenager', Lee. And it's not that bad." Hermione said bracingly to her newly young friend. "And you are fifteen at the moment, it could have been worse."

Lee looked unconvinced. "Oh yeah? How?" She asked challengingly.

Ron winced. "You could have been a baby." He offered immediately.

The girls stared at him for a moment. "You know what Ron?" Lee said blankly, staring at her friend. "Sometimes, you really, really scare me."

Hermione made a noise of agreement in the back of her throat.

"What?" Ron said defensively. "You were asking what the worst case could be, and I said it! The worst would be that me and 'Mione would have had to adopt you, cos then we wouldn't really have our best friend and I don't know about you, but I don't want to find out what a Potter's diapers are like."

They continued staring. If one listened closely, they may have been able to hear the sounds of their screaming, tortured souls and internal bids for an Obliviation squad to storm the house. When none came bursting into the room, Lee whispered reluctantly, because we all wanted to know; "… diapers…?"

Ron shuddered. "Victiore. Babysitting." …

They all sat or stood in silence for a moment, before simultaneously and silently agreeing to never mention that ever again.

Lee cleared her throat awkwardly, but frowned harshly as she remembered what they were previously arguing about. "It's not even only that!" She exclaimed loudly, drawing the married-duo's attention.

Ron rolled his eyes. "It's not like you're suffering or anything, Lee. I mean, you were good before, but you're fine now!"

Hermione strode up and cuffed him on the back of his head harshly. "Do not talk about checking out our newly fifteen-year-old best friend, Ronald. And it is not too late for me to get an annulment, you know."

Ron looked pained. "I know that! It's just… veela!" He waved his arm in Lee's general direction, and she crossed her arms over her chest huffily.

"Do you think I would ever want to be one EVER, RONALD? I can't stand… this!" She growled, aggressively leaning forwards in her chair and scowling at him.

"Oh calm down Lee, you're smoking." Hermione chided, eyeing the fifteen-year-old veela's fingers, which were indeed smoking. Lee blinked when she saw it before sheepishly putting them out, placing her hand behind her back innocently. "Yes yes, I know you can't completely control it." Hermione added dismissively.

"And that's why I can't go through with your plan." Analeigh concluded, as if that was what she was going to say all along. "Hello! Veela here…?"

Hermione huffed, rolling her eyes. "Yes we know that, obviously. It is why we left England, after all. I still don't know what possessed us to work for the Ministry in the first place, even if the Unspeakables are generally outside the Minister's control. I don't understand why, when the accident happened in their very headquarters, that they were so- so… bloody vicious about it! I mean, it's not like you wanted to fall into the time-space hourglass! It was their bloody fault for having such lax security that supposedly retired Death Eaters could enter in the first place! Really, they should have compensated you for the inconvenience of being turned into a veela-"

"Half-veela" Lee stressed.

"-Half veela, then!" She exasperatedly corrected. "I mean, it's definitely unjust! And then having the nerve to make you out to be a criminal so that they could experiment on you! It's… it's… Arggh!" Hermione ended, inarticulate in the face of her rage at the Wizarding Government, pulling at her hair and messing it up further.

"Whoa Hermione!" Lee exclaimed, staring wide-eyed at her red-faced friend. "Calm down, no need to burst a brain vessel! Geez, relax! It happened to me and even I'm not that hung up about it!"

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose and took a few deep breaths in and out to calm down. Lee and Ron watched her carefully, alarmed but relatively used to the behaviour because it mirrored how she acted whenever let alone to rant about the injustices in the magical world.

"At least you guys came with me…?" Lee offered the brunette girl carefully, employing distract and deny tactics to hopefully avoid another rant on the latest extremely unfair and cruel twist to her own life that had just gotten her run out of England for being a 'magical creature'. Or at least enough of one that it counted. She didn't exactly get what experiment she'd broken and completely screwed up in the process of the fight; Hermione knew, and Lee was pretty sure that her friend had explained it to her on several occasions, but well… Hermione was of the 'Bins' persuasion when lecturing. Meaning that she used large and weird words and droned on for ever and ever so… yeah. Lee had no idea what-so-ever.

It didn't particularly bother her. She was never one to think about how something happened, just that it had, followed immediately after with the inevitable 'oh hell, how am I going to live through this?' question.

"Well of course we came with you." Hermione said exasperatedly, throwing her hands up in the air. "What else were we going to do? Run you out of the country for something you hadn't done?"

Lee decided not to mention that her insecurities had offered that very scenario, even after all the times her friends had proven otherwise. "What was that, Ronald?" The brunette witch sharply shot at Ron, who had muttered something to himself under his breath.

The red-head's eyes widened and he blushed. "D-do I have to…" He was uncomfortable, and twitching.

Both females stared at him and Ron, like the outnumbered male he was, scratched the back of his neck. "I just said… 'what she said'…"

"That sounded more like a question than an answer, Ronald." Hermione pointed out, narrowing her eyes at him.

Ron's eyes widened. "Fine! I said that we couldn't leave her alone… 'cos-she-was-a-minor…." He said quickly, trying to get the words blurred together.

Hermione snorted, but managed to disguise it rather poorly as a cough when her angry friend glared wildly at her. "STOP DOING THAT!"

"…I would, but you're a teen." Ron muttered and, unfortunately for him, Lee heard it.

"STOP MAKING FUN OF MEEE!" She half-whined, pouting. Both adults carefully covered up their smirk/smiles and superior feelings because they weren't in her predicament.

"Adult-envy." Was muttered slyly.

"Hermione!" Lee gasped, putting a hand dramatically to her chest, "I thought that was above you!"

"No, it was above you." Hermione bantered.

"Touché." Lee muttered. "That hurts, right here." She pointed to her heart woefully fluttering her eyes ridiculously.

Suddenly, Hermione paused. "YOU DID IT AGAIN! She practically screamed in frustration.

"Shh! You'll disturb the neighbours!" Lee shushed, waving her hands in a quelling notion and trying not to visibly quail before the enraged visage of her best friend.

Hermione opened her mouth. Then she closed it. Then she opened it, and visibly shook with rage, and closed it again. She closed her eyes and pinched her nose, doing the deep-breaths thing for the third time that evening. When she had stopped shaking, she began again; "You are going to meet your family, Lee. This 'Sumire Ryuzaki' – or Ryuzaki Sumire, as it is in Japanese – is related to you, by blood. I will not allow you to ditch out on meeting the woman – it is a good chance for you to learn that not all of your blood relatives will reject you."

"But what if she does?" Lee whined, not happy at all now that Hermione had seen through her super, awesome plan to once again distract her.

Hermione stayed very still, a peculiar glint of light entering her eyes. Lee was seated, confused, as she looked between her friends as they glanced at each other. They had the same look in their eyes. "… You can't actually do the telepathic chat thingy, can you? Because, you know, that's kind of freaky. I really mean it guys. Really. Stop it! Stop!"

Hermione abruptly sniffed and snapped out of it. "Don't worry, we'll take care of it, if that's the case."

"But I still don't like the plan." Lee said, partly because she felt like being contrary and partly because she really didn't. "And anyway, I've lived without this woman for twenty-eight years, I think I can live the rest without her." She reasoned reasonably.

Ron very obviously looked at her. "Really? Because right now, you've actually not known her for fifteen years, and your mother gave birth to you in 1993. You paid the money for that goblin-hired hacker to change your records and, you know, make some for your father and us so we wouldn't raise suspicion in the muggle world, so don't stuff it up."

Lee pursed her lips.

"You have age envy!" Ron exclaimed, rather ridiculously and randomly. Hermione went to shush him, but then she looked at her newly blonde-veela-teenaged (dear god when did it stop?) best friend. "You do." She stated oddly, looking at her.

Lee enviously crossed her arms and glared at the floor to avoid glaring at her friends. They hadn't ditched her after she'd set them each on fire five times every other day when she'd been adjusting to her anger outbursts being accompanied by fireballs and slight (only very slight) bird-age. She totally wouldn't be a bitch to them about being jealous of their age, or attack them because they were mocking her for it. They'd been constantly mocking her predicament, ever since they'd managed to ditch out on England.

Hermione patted her head rather awkwardly. "Cheer up Trace. At least, you know… veela. You won't be mocked and ridiculed. Hell, you'll probably be able to let out that inner!Slytherin you're so fond of. And it's not like you'll have to abstain either, because well, veela!"

Lee rolled her eyes. "So what? You're encouraging me by pointing out that I'm going to have people drooling over me – freaking everyone, or at least fairly weak-minded people that can't ignore the tiny bit of the Lure that I can't reign in – and that I'll have a sex life, because veela need sex?" She responded crudely, ignoring Ron's squawked protest about not wanting to hear about that in conjunction with his best friend.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'm just pointing out the fact that teenagers are horny. And that you're practically set to enjoy your second puberty – you can only get more veela-like, so I think the blonde is a fair trade-off for that." She said bluntly in that superior-tone she got when explaining stuff.

"Yeah, but they're also inexperienced." Lee muttered, completely immune to any kind of embarrassment over the subject from growing up in a boarding school and having discussed such things with Hermione before. Although admittedly that was without the weird aspect of a thirteen year physical age difference. It had only been a month since the excrement hit the rotating device, after all.

Hermione fixed her friend with a droll stare. "That's easily fixed. And don't tell me that you missed all the hot boys that are walking around, I know you. And being a veela has pretty much only increased that. You'll be fine, you're the best person I know at adapting to weird situations and… we are talking about the plan now."

Lee sheepishly scratched the back of her head. Caught out, again. "Fine. But there's no way in hell that I'm just gonna walk up and introduce myself as her long-lost niece. Just… no. And I wanna get to know her first – you know, stake her out to see if I even want to let her know that I'm related, because I don't exactly have a good track record, considering…"

Hermione sighed before her eyes caught on her husband, who was humming under his breath with his fingers plugged into his ears. "Oh grow up Ron! It's safe now."

Ron was surprised when he found his fingers yanked away from his ears and looked straight up into his wife's annoyed expression. From the corner of his eyes, he could see his friend schooling her expression. "What?"

"Really, Ronald. Pay attention." Hermione scolded before she turned back to Lee and continued; "Well it's a good thing for you then that we had a back-up plan."

"Back-up… plan?" Lee parroted, eyes darting between the couple. "What did you do?"

"Oh calm down." Hermione dismissed her friend's worry absently in the process of pulling something out of her pocket.

Lee eyed it and her best friend warily, because she did not like the vaguely evil grin that the brunette was sporting.

"Well…" Hermione inwardly cackled with glee.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Stupid best friend." Lee muttered to herself while walking down the street. She tugged unobtrusively at her skirt (the stupid, stupid, annoying thing) in an attempt to make sure it didn't ride up, something that she'd been paranoid about ever since seeing the damn thing.

"Shouldn't schools want to avoid the girls flashing something?" She added irately, talking to herself. Because wasn't that what schools did? Well, apparently not in Japan.

"I hate Hermione." Lee repeated for the hundredth time that day. Because who was evil enough to throw their very bestest friend in the whole entire world to the sharks, without a safety net? Well, she had her answer. "And stupid freaking relative, for working in a school." She continued muttering, flapping her arms in a way that confused other pedestrians but helped her remember not to accidentally make big large fireballs appear out of nowhere in a normal neighbourhood.

"Stupid veela crap." She scoffed, because when she was already complaining about one grievance, she may as well complain about them all. Hell, she just saw some kid almost walk into traffic because he was distracted staring at her. And how creepy was that? Very. God, she so wasn't prepared for this crap. Maybe she could just go back home and hex Hermione until the woman bowed to her will and conceded.

"Fucking… but why school?" She ranted, but was careful to keep her voice low and mumbled so that no one would actually think she was crazy. Getting carted off by the nice men in white coats in a straight jacket just wasn't on her list of things to do.

They had moved to the Kantou region of Tokyo barely a month ago, and she'd been badgered ever since by both of her best friends to grow a pair and look up a distant relative that she'd learnt of a few years ago but never particularly bothered finding anything more than the woman's location as a curiosity. It had actually completely slipped her mind exactly where the woman lived… well, until Hermione exclaimed in her I-am-superiorly-smart-and-have-a-bigger-brain-so-do-as-I-say voice out of the blue that she no longer had an excuse not to look up this Sumire Ryuzaki – you know, since they lived so close and all, and don't you think that she deserves to know about you as well?

Which was how she had ended up in this particularly shit situation.

Hermione didn't take bullshit. That was one of the Rules of Hermione, and the evidence of this was her punching the Ferret in the face. With age not only came maturity, but a better knowledge of where to hit so that it hurt – as evidenced by her kicking Draco in a spot considered… below the belt when she got particularly mad at him for practically ransacking her office when they were all working as Unspeakables together. Of course, she also had other outlets and uses for her sadistic streak, and that had shone brightly in her latest plan. It just happened to be 'Plan: Send Analeigh Potter to Seishun Gakuen', a freaking middle school, because 'she has to go to one anyway – we don't want to get in trouble for not sending a minor to complete her education after all, do we Ron?' And of course, if her relative just so happened to work as the tennis coach in said school well, that was just a bonus then wasn't it?

Lee scowled and muttered a few choice words under her breath, pulled at the back of her skirt – which just so happened to be a part of the school's accursed female uniform – and bemoaned all the blackmail that her friend had collected over the years which was definitely the only reason she was going along with the stupid, annoying, sadistic plan that her traitor best friends had thought up. Ron had been in tears of laughter all morning, saying things like 'don't want to be late to school now, dear!' and 'eat your breakfast, oh and don't forget your lunch money!'

It was horrible. Absolutely, positively, completely and utterly horrible.

And it was made all the more freaky with the lovely knowledge that Hermione and Ron were listed as her adoptive parents on the school registration forms.

Just… No. Lee wanted to forget that. Where was that Squadron of Obliviators when you needed it?

Of course, between cursing up a blue streak, bemoaning over the horrors that she fully expected to encounter at the school, and concocting some kind of revenge to deal out upon her friends; it should come as no surprise that she crashed into someone on the sidewalk.

She managed to catch herself to land on her feet because of all that freaking training that had been ingrained into her during the war and only reinforced further by her Unspeakable training on top of that, but it still sucked and she dropped her bag on the ground.

Sighing and stopping her annoyed muttering for the moment, she looked at the person that she'd knocked down. It was a boy with sandy brown hair, staring deep blue eyes and a rather feminine appearance. He was staring up at her with the slightly out-of-it look that she'd had to get used to; she quickly identified that he'd gotten pretty much slapped across the face with her stupid veela Lure shit when she'd bumped into him. Absently recognising his clothes as the male uniform for the school that Hermione had rudely enrolled her in from the brochure she'd seen last night, she muttered a 'sorry' and reached down to pick up her leather backpack (that she'd sneakily cast lightening and expansion charms on) and his bag.

She slung her bag over her shoulder, this time putting it on properly so it wouldn't be knocked off, and reached a hand down for him. The boy stared at it, still slightly out-of-it, before his expression changed – his eyes closed and he had a kind smile fixed to his face. Lee was no stranger to fixed expressions, and she got the feeling that was the front he presented most of the time, and she had caught him off guard to see anything else. Having shaken off the affect of a veela's presence, (something she swore she would hate for ever and ever) the boy calmly accepted her hand and she obligingly pulled him to his feet.

"Sorry about that." She repeated sheepishly now that he wasn't distracted, "Oh, here's your bag – you dropped it."

The boy accepted his bag, examining the girl that he had bumped into carefully. "Thank you. I think that I am also at fault for not watching where I was going. I'm Fuji Syuusuke, by the way." He introduced politely.

"I'm Potter Analeigh, Syuusuke-san, but call me Lee." The newly half-veela replied, inwardly thanking any deity that was listening that this Syuusuke wasn't going to continue to vacantly stare at her.

They stood there for a moment, and Lee decided that it would be better to move things along. "So, you go to Seishun Gakuen? It's just, I'm a transfer from England and I think I'm slightly lost, not to mention that it wouldn't be the best idea to arrive late on my first day…" She trailed off.

"Aaa." Fuji acknowledged, and gestured for Lee to follow him; "It's this way, Lee-san. It would be easier for you to call me Fuji, as that is what I am used to." He added politely, smiling to show that he didn't particularly mind. Lee nodded sightly in relief because she didn't particularly want to have to keep getting her tongue around 'Syuusuke'. She wasn't that used to speaking Japanese.

"I wondered why I did not recognise you." Fuji started, glancing at Lee out of the corner of his eyes. "You are quite… recognisable, after all." He added, looking questioningly at her.

Lee distractedly noticed for the first time that she was even with him height-wise, or maybe even a little bit taller which was admittedly something of a novelty for her. She brushed off his allusion to her veela-ness and answered his leading statement; "I am entering the third year."

Fuji nodded, his eyes still mostly closed as he led her around the corner. "What a coincidence – I am in the third year as well. If I may ask, why is today your first day? I believe that the school year started yesterday…?"

Lee eyed Fuji, but the boy practically exuded polite interest and she didn't see anything wrong with perhaps making a friend so she wouldn't be without some kind of help when she reached the school. She waved her hand casually, "Eh, I only got here a couple of days ago and everything was pretty frantic. Principal Ishikawa didn't mind my beginning to attend a day late."

"That is also something we have in common then; I had to miss the first day to attend a tennis match with the team." Fuji replied in an attempt to keep the light conversation going.

He was intrigued by this girl – Potter Lee. He had been walking calmly to school one second, and then the next he bumped into the girl, and he was on the ground, staring up at the… well, 'goddess' would be far too exaggerated, but objectively Lee was certainly the most stunning female that he had ever met. He could only gape like an idiot for a few moments, and had lost any and all trace of his infamous composure – which worried him, as he had never been caught so completely off guard before. And he had never been as attracted to a female before. He would be sure to keep his guard around this stunning girl, but it might be interesting to see his friend's reactions to her… and he had to admit that she also seemed to be one of the few that had a level head on her shoulders.

"Oh, so you play tennis?"

Fuji was pulled out of his contemplations by the light question. "Yes, I play tennis. I am actually a Regular on Seigaku's tennis team. Do you play?" He added curiously, because that would make the puzzle even more intriguing.

The blonde bombshell shrugged and said, "Nope. I've never even seen a game in my life, let alone had a shot at playing it."

To Fuji, the concept of someone having not even seen a tennis match was… inconceivable. Just… unbelievable, considering that his whole life practically revolved around the game, along with the lives of anyone he considered a friend or even worth his attention. "You will come with me after school to watch our practise then." He stated, because it apparently fell to him to introduce the poor girl to the best sport in the world. She was simply missing out and Fuji, in all good conscience, could not allow for that to continue.

Lee eyed him as if trying to decipher his intentions, and Fuji was inwardly amused that on one of the few occasions that his words honestly carried no underlying motives other than wanting to educate her in the joys of tennis that the person would be sceptical of his words. Even so, he also recognised that a girl like that would probably be used to less than honourable intentions when receiving similar offers. "There will be a lot of other people there, and the Coach." He added, seeking to quell any kind of misgivings.

They could see the building now, but Fuji noticed that Lee wasn't paying any attention to it. "What is the coach's name?"

Fuji didn't recognise the tone that the blonde girl was using, and although he found the question slightly strange he answered it anyway; "Ryuzaki Sumire."

"Hmm… I might come." Lee responded ambiguously after a moment, inwardly cursing her luck at having met a freaking tennis player even before she'd gotten to the school. By looking at him and his expression, she got a sinking feeling that he would be strangely determined and stubborn about getting her to the practise. She didn't actually mind going to see what tennis was all about – it was more that she definitely did not feel up to meeting this Ryuzaki woman on her very first day.

…Although, if she got it over with really fast then she would bet that she'd be able to get Hermione to remove her from the school. That would be nice. But she certainly hadn't built up the nerve to do that yet; she wasn't anywhere near being ready to let that particular cat out of the bag. The pro for attending the practise… she supposed she didn't have to talk about them being related, and it wasn't very likely that the coach would strike up a conversation with some random girl that one of the Regulars brought with them to practise.

"Here we are, Lee." Fuji brought her out of her confused musings, bringing her attention to the fact that she was standing in the middle of the walk in front of the school.

"Thankyou, Fuji." She replied, "Would you happen to know where the office is?"

"Yes. Just enter the large doors and turn left; you should be able to see the sign from there. Well, I guess that I will either see you in class or at lunch, Lee – I will be looking forward to it." He smiled politely at her just before the bell rang, and set off towards his class with the crowd of students.

The half-veela waved at the polite, albeit slightly strange, boy before setting off to follow the directions, ignoring the ringing bell completely.


	2. Are You Magnetic?

After precisely three minutes and twenty-three seconds, Analeigh Potter was mentally calculating (and re-calculating) the probable prison sentence she would receive for violating that teensy-weensy little law most knew as the 'Statute of Secrecy'. She was the saviour of wizarding Britain after all, and she was hot – maybe she could pull a Daisy Duke and show up to her trial in short-shorts and get out of it?

Frankly, right at this very moment she'd eagerly take a few years in prison without parole to get out of the cesspit misnamed as 'middle school', and she wouldn't even complain very much about it.

…Although, the high probability of being extradited back to Britain to be experimented on weren't so peachy-keen, if she was looking at it in a strictly logical way.

The terrible, terrible thing was that she hadn't even got to her classroom yet.

Lee was pretty much ready to go curl up in a corner and cry. Well, either that or laugh like a lunatic and go do something that she was pretty sure she'd regret. Sometime. Maybe. …A long time after the fact, when she'd had her wand snapped and was at the mercy of British buffoons.

And just what had driven her usually even-temperament (shut up, mental-Hermione) to such exasperated, borderline-insane heights of frustration?

Two words – Student. Guide.

Of course, it may have something to do with the particular guide that the office lady had chosen for her – a small red-haired, uni-browed kid that had been getting increasingly loud and annoying towards the woman, protesting something-or-other that she didn't care to listen in on.

When the slightly over-weight woman had looked at her while plastically smiling and informed her that the boy, Satoshi Horio, would show her where her class was, Lee could just scent the vindictive 'ha-ha I'm getting revenge for being bullied in high school by girls as good looking as you' in her tone.

Sigh. What was it about education that seemed to draw the petty vindictive types? Well, at least it wasn't a personal grudge as opposed to what she'd suffered under Snape – and really, what kind of educator kept bringing up their student's dead parents every couple of lessons?

Anyway, the kid hadn't stopped stuttering since she glanced at him sideways, and he was a blistering red, and she could almost imagine waves of heat issuing from his face.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" She asked, her tone not-quite aggressive (mindful of the fact he was a tiny brat, and Colin had been way more irritating by sheer virtue of the camera he had carried around) although it could be classified as borderline.

She had a sneaking suspicion that that bitch on reception had tasked a first-year with the job of leading her to her classroom. How was a freshman supposed to show her the way? It was more ridiculous than the blind leading the blind!

Horio looked up at her, spluttering and still at a loss for words, although he winced under her gaze and sunk into himself. She could kind-of make out excuses, and caught the tail-end of "…only my second day, but I have two years of tennis experience!"

Abstractly wondering just what the hell the kid's years of tennis experience had to do with anything, she was relieved when she saw a student walking down the far end of the corridor.

Promptly abandoning Horio, she shouted "HEY, WAIT UP!" and ran to catch up with him.

Of course, it just couldn't be as easy as all that, could it? The boy, who she came to realise was really, really tall as she caught up with him, didn't stop walking.

"Oi! I was talking to you! Stop for a second!"

The boy paused in his stride this time, and although he didn't turn around, he still didn't move away anymore.

"Thanks for that." Her voice was slightly edged with sarcasm, but she was finally at a close enough distance to converse in a more normal volume. In the interests of hurrying this along she explained, "I'm a transfer student, and I'm looking for class 3-6. Could you give me directions?"

Rectangle-shaped glasses obscured the boy's eyes, and his expression remained unchanged as he saw her – something she was very thankful for, as the last thing she needed was to turn the poor boy into a pile of gibbering-mush from overload of the old veela charm, especially since she was beginning to be afraid at how pissed off the teacher would be when she interrupted his/her class, right when they'd probably just gotten settled down. God, she knew how annoying that was from her time teaching the DA.

The boy's hands seemed to twitch for something as he answered, "That class is in room 26-A. Take the first left, and then it is the third on the right. I believe Ninose-sensei is in charge of the class at the moment."

Lee spared a moment to shout "Thanks!" over her shoulder as she sprinted off in the indicated direction, and was left with the impression of the boy extracting a notebook from his bag.

Before she'd had more than a moment to be relieved she'd managed to get competent directions Lee was knocking on the door and told to enter.

If she was remotely holding out hope that being presented with a classroom of faceless 'peers' instead of having to talk to teens one-on-one was going to be easier, she was sorely disappointed.

Of course, Lee had never been one to prescribe to the 'glass half full' theory, so it turned out pretty much exactly as she was expecting – she received barefaced leers from pretty much the entire male population (barring one or two exceptions) and glares from the females… practically par for course in whichever room she'd happened upon since the Change.

"Potteru Analeigh-san?"

Her green eyes slid from the rather… hostile class to the teacher, who had said her name in a sharp voice. He looked pissed.

"As it is your first day, I will excuse your lateness. Take a seat, Potteru. Now."

She barely glanced at the students in the class – as far as she was concerned, they were a single entity, and the best way she'd learnt to deal with the situation in which she was the 'different' one was wilful ignorance. It was more of a trained reaction than anything, but it served her well.

Lee didn't particularly pay attention to the stuff Ninose-sensei was spouting. After all, the agreement had only covered her attending Seigaku, not attending and doing well. Anyway, occlumency pretty much covered any and all plain information-based assessment, and that was what schools focused on. She'd do just well enough not to get kicked out for bad grades, and stuff everything else.

She was firm within her belief that she'd force Hermione into submission about this stupid attend-school shit sooner or later, and in the mean-time what was better than just coasting along and reminding herself what it was like to live without worries?

Of course, in her state of not-quite-there, the bell rang sooner than she was expecting and so she didn't notice when everyone started packing up their books in anticipation of the first break.

A hand on her shoulder jolted her back to the present, also acquainting her with the realisation that it was not a good idea to zone-out in a room full of horny teenage boys.

She was surrounded, and they were closing in. She didn't feel threatened exactly, but she was being barraged with stupid pick-up lines and questions ranging from where she had transferred from to if she would be the asker's girlfriend.

Lee looked down at the hand on her shoulder and followed it up to the politely smiling expression of the boy she'd run into on the way there, Fuji.

Fuji's morning had been something of an exercise in frustration. He knew, from the moment that Ninose-sensei had looked at the door for a second time as if expecting something that the girl he'd met on his way to Seigaku – Lee – was in his class. He was impatient for her to enter the room, because he wanted to see his classmate's reaction to her… charm.

His interest in their reactions followed the same path as when Tezuka tasked Inui with creating a new concoction to try out as motivation for his team – impersonal, and wanting to see them squirm. It was always interesting seeing that, and Fuji had a feeling that watching their initial reactions would be truly… satisfying.

He did so love watching people embarrass themselves. Fuji would become friends with Lee-san, if only so that he could follow her around and watch the reactions of everybody to her presence – he had a feeling that that would be a worthwhile pastime.

And oh, how he anticipated seeing if her presence could extract a reaction out of Tezuka.

It was enough to have his inner… slightly sadistic side cackling in glee.

When the blonde-bombshell entered the room, Fuji could feel the tension in the room. She stood in the doorway, staring somewhat wryly at the teacher – Fuji could recognise the subtle gesture that meant she was almost completely dismissing the man – before she scanned the class.

Fuji carefully hid his smirk as he saw the flustered reactions of his peers, and heard the hissing whispered comments erupting between friends. He also saw the… expressions on their faces, and felt that he would be amused for quite a while – with the addition of the girl, the whole unspoken and delicate balance of the understanding between the students had been scattered like so many blocks by a two-year-old in its destructive phase.

Ninose-sensei instructed her to take a seat, and that is when the exercise in frustration began.

He had expected her to spot him and take the empty seat that was closest to his position. This did not happen. In fact, the creeping suspicion that she had not even seen him steadily gained weight as he spent the first few minutes attempting to catch her eye.

She didn't notice him.

Such an occurrence was… unfamiliar to him. He was used to holding the attention of everybody around him, when it suited him of course. They watched him lest he get… ideas.

For some reason, nobody ever liked his ideas. Oishi in particular seemed to take some measure of pleasure in diverting them.

It continued that way the entire duration of the session. He eventually decided to just approach her after the class, when he could properly gain her attention. In the meantime, he contented himself with studying his newest source of interest.

Her hair curled around her shoulders, and she was reclined in her seat, her eyes taking on a distant-look – he could tell that she was mentally far away from the classroom. She didn't seem to notice or react at all to the notes piling up on her desk from curious students, nor did she react to any of the lewd or snide comments spoken by the more… crass class members. The girls were predictably jealous, and Fuji could somewhat sympathise with certain… thoughts that her appearance provoked within a hormone-driven mind.

"Psst! Fujiko! Whaddya think 'bout the new girl?"

Eiji had not learned to control the volume of his voice, and as such any attempt of his at being discrete and/or secretive was doomed to failure. The only up-side for this was that the sensei had apparently given up scolding the over-enthusiastic boy for this and everyone around him had long learnt to pretend they were oblivious to his excited 'whispering'. Fuji sometimes wondered what it was about Eiji's almost child-like innocence and attitude that provoked this charitable response in the people around him.

Fuji smiled at the red-haired boy and his innocent wide eyes and leaned over so that at least his response was not so easily overheard, although Ninose-sensei would likely overlook any indiscretion the tensai of Seigaku may commit, within reason.

"Lee-san is an interesting person." He whispered to Eiji, and was amused by the pronounced blinking and tilt of the head that was Eiji's confused reaction.

"Eh?"

Fuji cast a mysterious smile at the thoroughly confused boy by now, finding more amusement in feeding certain facts to the boy then to just explain that he had already had the opportunity to speak to her.

Eiji spent the rest of the lesson bouncing in his seat and shooting pleading glances at the tensai, wanting to know what he meant with his response. With this to distract him, Fuji found that in almost no time at all the bell for break was ringing.

He had predicted that their curiosity (and some things much less innocent then curiosity) would draw his classmates to approach the girl. He was surprised by how many were in that group, and the love-sick looks of a few of the boys – he had never thought he'd see such an expression on Kuwahara, he was usually much more reserved – they looked almost overwhelmed, staring in an eerie half-vacant way that Fuji wasn't sure what to make of.

He wasn't really surprised that the subject of all the attention did not seem aware of it. She probably had not noticed the bell. Feeling obligated in some way to help her, he put an arm on her shoulder to shake her out of the daze she had been in all morning, and directed his smile at the group that was almost suffocatingly close.

He opened his eyes to pin them with a hard look for good measure – after all, people were afraid of his cold blue eyes, and he knew exactly how to take advantage of the fact – before closing them again and directing a smile at the girl once more.

"Good morning again, Lee-san."

"Fuji? Fuji! Oh, I didn't notice that you were in this class, sorry." The girl stared up at him with emerald eyes and he felt a little bit of the morning's frustration with her receding, even as he adjusted his approximation of her capability of manipulation accordingly.

Fuji smiled and nodded politely, "I suppose that I can forgive you." He couldn't entirely contain the look that came to his face then as he said pointedly, "I believe that you would like to attend tennis practise with me to completely make amends."

Fuji's sneaky smile apparently only elicited an eye-roll response from the girl, but she sighed in acceptance none-the-less.

"Who is…" Lee trailed off, apparently finally becoming uncomfortable enough with the gaping red-haired boy beside him to question the wide-eyed and blinking Eiji, who was wildly looking from one to another comically.

"FUJIKO! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU KNEW THE NEW GIRL NYA~?" Eiji finally burst out, flailing a little and appearing almost mortally offended by the omission.

Lee seemed to be still staring strangely at the tennis team's resident acrobat, and Fuji couldn't quite contain his quite chuckles and thus the boy was left to gain more and more volume and jump up and down without reproof, gaining steam in his dramatics.

Fuji wasn't entirely sure at which point quiet laughter joined his, but he was aware that Lee ended up laughing, her voice sounding nothing like he'd ever heard before.

"Eiji!" A firm reproof sounded from the door, reducing the three in the room to silence in a second, almost as if they were caught out by a teacher or their parents.

Lee looked curiously at the door to the room, and was treated to the sight of yet another boy, his eyes fixed firmly on the energetic red-head that she'd decided was probably just a little bit closer to the 'Luna' side of mental health than everybody else. The boy who made cat-noises was harmless enough though and entertaining to boot. When she finally caught his name, she had a feeling they'd get along like a house on fire.

"You need to calm down." The boy continued strictly albeit amicably, and Lee could see that the reproof was more out of worry for his friend than any more malignant motives. "Eiji, you need to be more careful, do you want to get detention on your second day here?"

'Eiji's' eyes widened comically and he stopped at once, miming zipping his lips together and throwing away the key.

The new boy shook his head and sighed, a slight smile itching at the corner of his mouth. It was only then that he noticed that Eiji was not the only occupant of the room.

Lee sighed as she saw him do a double-take upon seeing her form, and ignored his reddening cheeks. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and introduced, "Oh hello. Sorry, miss, I didn't see you there. I'm Oishi Shuichiro, and it's nice to meet you." He bowed briefly, following the social custom before smiling at her.

"Potter Analeigh, but call me Lee please – it's just simpler that way. Nice to meet you, Oishi." She smiled at him, getting the distinct impression that he was probably going to be one of the most level-headed teenagers she met in the school. He actually kind of reminded her of Hermione when telling her to follow the rules or leave Snape alone.

"Oishi." Fuji nodded in greeting, and received a greeting back, making Lee wonder just how they knew each other. What connection was there between the two seemingly very different personalities?

Fuji might have sensed her curiosity, for his next action was to turn to her and state, "Oishi is the vice-captain of the tennis club."

Oh. Well, that cleared that up nicely.

The red-haired boy, who'd been squirming silently through the Fuji-Oishi exchange seemed to be unable to contain himself again, "And I'm Eiji Kikumaru, at your service Lee-chan! How are you? What do like about Seigaku nya? Well, of course it's cos you know Seigaku's number one! Do you play tennis? Can I play against you? Can I can I huh?"

The rapid-fire questioning coupled with the fact the Eiji's face was about two inches in front of hers, and that she could see him practically vibrating with excitement all came together into one very frightening picture of childish energy.

She was tempted to kick Fuji in the shin for snickering behind his hand at her predicament.

At least Oishi seemed to be grimacing at the many, numerous barriers of privacy and basic social etiquette broken to so many pieces that Eiji had just left in his wake.

Staring at expectant blue eyes, she wondered if it was too late to steal Hermione's time-turner and lock Hermione in her room so she could just skip the entire day.


	3. Opportunity

Nothing of note really happened to interrupt the rest of Lee's first day in hel-er, school. She got shouted at and 'told pointedly' a few times to 'stay awake in class' and 'pay attention' and so fourth, but she was pretty much desensitised to any of this – when you truly didn't care about school results, (a luxury she finally had, after having to pay close attention in Hogwarts due to the fact that what she learned or ignored could very well save/threaten her life in some way) well, nothing the educators said or threatened her with could move her.

Lee had a feeling that she'd get a fair bit of entertainment out of however long she had to attend Seigaku because of this – hell, she hadn't been able to so bluntly disobey someone since… well, ever, considering how Petunia didn't take any shit from her little 'helper' and that at Hogwarts she'd been painfully subservient to authority figures – she figured she'd grown a backbone during her angsty (and rightly so) teenage years, even though she'd done a lot of apologising after she'd cooled down from each outburst and she had still followed directions like a good little soldier.

No, she wasn't bitter at _all_.

But enough of that – she'd gotten over that ages ago.

The icing on top of the cake was the absolutely horrified looks the red-haired cat-boy kept sending her for disobeying teachers the whole day. Every time she just passively shrugged and went straight back to lying back in her chair and resting with her eyes closed (fine, very light sleeping) she could see him fidgeting in his chair with a worried look on his face from under her eyelashes. He'd also try to wake her up and inevitably fling bits of paper at her with a thousand different questions scribbled on them, basically along the lines of 'what's wrong?', and 'wake up!', which she in turn stuck to the inside of her work book, creating a collage that very loosely resembled Voldie's nose-less face, even colouring in some bits of paper to properly replicate the red eyes and superior-sneer.

The bell signalling the end of her obligation to stay at Seigaku had rung, and just as she'd gathered all of her stuff and been prepared to ninja herself out of the building, Fuji materialised at her side. "Holy shit! Fuji, try to warn a girl next time!" She held Fuji's eyes, creating a screen so he wouldn't notice that a hand had flown instinctively to one of the knives that she had stashed in her clothing, hidden securely by magic.

Now that right there was another reason that she'd have to add to her list of reasons of 'Why Nobody In Their Right Mind Would Want Me To Be Around Kids' to use against Hermione. Her friend usually appreciated logical lists of stuff, and it was the next step in her plan of non-violently resisting this insane twist her life had taken. You know, the one she'd resort to if she was – once again – talked out of going on that other, much more appealing path.

Fuji, on his part, appeared mildly surprised. "Lee-san. I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to sneak up on you – in fact, I rather thought that you had been aware of my approach and was expecting me… unless you were trying to avoid fulfilling your promise…?" He left his statement open ended, smiling pleasantly at her but somehow giving her the impression of a leopard stalking its prey and waiting to take that final lunge.

She blinked innocently at him and sheepishly scratched the back of her head to hide the raising of her eyebrows at this strange impression, "Ah no, of course not."

His face was still in that mask of smiling, although the underlying impression faded as he replied, far more warmly, "That's good then. Come on, Lee-san, it is the first official day that the tennis club is open this year and I must get there shortly to meet up with the other Regulars. Eiji-kun has already gone on ahead with Oishi, so we will meet him there."

"Okay" She sighed, before taking a step to the side and gesturing down the hall, "Lead on, fearless leader" Lee added, unable as ever to contain her sarcasm.

Fuji chuckled and set off towards the courts.

"So, what exactly am I gonna do while you attend your tennis meeting thing? Am I even allowed to sit in?"

Fuji glanced sideways at his most recent acquaintance and soon-to-be friend (if he had anything to say about it, that was) and decided to assuage some of her misgivings, because there would be no fun to be seen at the first practise if he wouldn't get to witness the adding of this distracting girl. "I would not worry, Lee-san. Our practises are commonly observed, even by local professional tennis magazine reporters a lot of the time. Admittedly, they are usually most commonly attended closer to our matches, but you will not be the only person not in the club there."

"That's good then." She sighed, and went back to studying the surroundings with a kind of bored nonchalance. Fuji studied the grace in the economy of her movements, the disguised power that he had the impression rested within her form, her almost soundless footsteps upon the hard floors of Seigaku, which usually echoed the steps of any student passing upon them. Yes, this girl was an athlete, although apparently not one trained in tennis. Most skills in sports were transferrable though, and Fuji knew a handful of people off the top of his head who had started playing another sport and switched to tennis, only to find themselves more than acceptable players – take, for instance, Rikkaidai's Yagyuu Hiroshi who used to play golf.

He could study how she took to watching tennis, and in that way he might be able to encourage some interest in the sport… if nothing else, it would be interesting and give him some way to form a friendship with her if she asked him to teach her.

They continued in a silence that wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but not completely natural either. "The courts are just up here." Fuji finally announced, spotting the familiar sight and feeling a little better just because of it – he had missed being able to play tennis each day during the holidays, and talking with his friends on a constant basis.

Lee followed slightly behind Fuji as he led her through the gate and onto the court. Nobody noticed their entrance immediately, so she got a chance to study the kids gathered around. There seemed to be three distinct groups – a large group of kids all wearing a blue sports uniform which she guessed was made up of second and third years based on their height, and smaller group of kids in a white shirt and shorts that were hanging back along the sidelines and finally what seemed like the 'elite' group that, due to their number, she guessed were the Regulars, which Fuji had already explained were the students that competed with other schools and had earned their place through pure talent in tennis. All in all, a quick head-count revealed that there were almost thirty kids milling around the court, waiting for somebody to arrive – which, due to the lack of any adults, she could only guess was her grandmother once-removed, Sumire.

Fuji went straight over to the group of six that wore the same jacket as Fuji did (which she guessed was the team uniform for Regulars) and she trailed behind him, spotting Eiji immediately although she didn't see Oishi anywhere.

"Lee-chan!" Eiji practically cheered upon spotting her approach, and actually sprinted to her and grabbed her up in a tackle-hug… or at least attempted to, and Fuji managed to snag the back of cat-boy's jacket, saving her from being knocked to the ground by the boy – even she wouldn't have been able to stay upright under the amount of force that seemed to come with that hug.

"Mou, Fuji! I just wanted to greet Lee-chan properly! Lee-chan, how've you been doing, ha? Ooo, I thought you'd get in soo much trouble in class, you shouldn't be bad to the sensei! But anyway, I told the others about you and they wanted to meet you too!" The red-haired boy said excitedly, not pausing for breath and managing to wiggle out of Fuji's grip on his jacket and snatch up the blond-haired girl in one of his hugs.

Lee, on her part, conceded gracefully to the hug, seeing that contesting the contact would do no good and maybe even encourage this reaction in the future in the boy's way of 'helping' her.

Fuji, on his part, had intentionally released Eiji's jacket after he was sure his friend wouldn't bowl Lee-san over. After all, while Lee was being distracted by the exuberant acrobatic tennis player, he was able to focus on the team's reaction to the new arrival.

It continued to amaze him that one person was able to have such an effect on the people around them, so much so that he always began to doubt that it had actually happened after he had spent longer amounts of time around her. Lee-san was a normal person – sure, she was irreverent and uncaring to the point of being rude to the sensei in class, she seemed to have a sarcastic choice of words in most instances and she seemed fairly relaxed and assured in her own abilities and sense of self, but as far as he could see there was no tangible thing that set her apart from others… when you got to know her, at least a little bit. After a while, he saw her as a normal girl, although above-average in looks, nothing on the level that should rationally cause… such strong reactions in the people around her.

What was even stranger was the fact that after he had left her presence for the short amount of time it took to collect his belongings and change uniforms, when he had returned and seen her from down the corridor… her sheer beauty struck him afresh. He had faltered, caught off balance once again from being unprepared to experience that original sight again – it was exactly the same thing he had felt that morning, when he had unexpectedly ran into such a beautiful girl as herself on the way to Seigaku. It was… curious. The puzzle of Potter Analeigh seemed to get even more interesting, even more strange.

And he was able to observe the reaction to her first hand. From the group of third and second years that made up the majority of the tennis club, it was just more of the same that he had observed in class, although there was a degree of jealous looks shot at his person for being the one associated with her – he had, after all, brought her to the practise so it was natural that they would come to a conclusion along these lines… but he was only peripherally aware of their reactions – after all, he was not usually particularly interested in anybody without some amount of genius in tennis, the one exception to the rule standing behind him and trying to talk herself out of Eiji's grip and lecture about being respectful to teachers that Fuji could tell was a paraphrased version of what Oishi directed at Kikumaru most of the time.

There had been wide eyes at first, and the first to recover was (rather predictably) Inui, who straightened himself up and adjusted his glasses before pulling out his little black book and muttering under his breath although Fuji had no way to know what about. The third year data-tennis expert was probably calculating the implications of the new addition, and doing his own research on the reactions caused by this girl in his peers – not to mention with a side-note about Fuji actually bringing her to practise, as this was the first time he had done such a thing.

Momoshiro's dropped jaw trembled a little and the burly second year instantly span around and quickly walked away from them and towards a smaller group of first years to talk, no doubt trying to hide his red face but being unable to stop sneaking glances across the court.

Kawamura, ever reserved without a form of racket in his hands, blushed lightly and rubbed the back of his head, and Fuji observed him standing up a bit taller and subtly checking his state of dress.

And it seemed like Kaido was frozen to the spot, Fuji equated his reaction to a deer caught in a truck's flood lights, although he seemed to be hissing slightly which was admittedly a common thing for the boy nicknamed 'Viper' to be doing.

Inui was the first to approach Eiji, Lee and himself, and Fuji spotted Kaido slipping swiftly away from them and into the crowd of tennis club members under the cover, probably for the safety that numbers afforded… Fuji had noticed that Kaido was uncommonly shy around the opposite sex, and those encounters always managed to… amuse his inner sadist. It was probably wrong of him to derive amusement from another's discomfort, but nature is as nature does and all that… he couldn't honestly help it. Not that he'd want to. Or even made an effort, really.

Fuji's only real disappointment in the encounter was that Tezuka was not at the court yet. But he would be able to see it some time, he would just have to be patient, something that he was rather apt at since a lot of his… plots did not come to fruition as quickly as this one had.

"Hello, Fuji. Who is our guest?" Inui greeted and asked bluntly, as he was wont to do.

"Inui. May I introduce Potter Analeigh-san? She is a transfer student from England that has been placed in my and Eiji's class."

"A pleasure, I'm sure." The subject of their conversation interrupted, nodding at Inui before continuing, "Call me Lee, ok? It'll be simpler. Hey, have we met before?"

Fuji watched the girl tilt her head in question, studying the taller boy as if trying to figure out where she had met him before he could respond.

Inui adjusted his glasses once again before nodding, "Yes, Lee-san. I do believe that we encountered each other in the third-year corridor C at 8:55am, whereupon you enquired as to the direction of room 26-A."

Lee blinked, and Fuji raised an eyebrow as he was unaware of the previous encounter. "Huh. Well, I remember now, thanks a lot."

One day, Fuji promised to himself, he would be able to determine if that particular tone was actually sarcastic or if she was being serious – there was a worrying amount of instances where he could not tell the difference in Lee-san's speech patterns.

Inui half-nodded and scribbled something else in his notebook, and Fuji had the sneaking suspicion that the data-specialist couldn't quite tell the difference either.

"What's all the noise over there about?" Lee asked, pointing to a far court that they hadn't noticed the other club members had moved to surround.

"Oh? Hmm, well, it looks like we will be treated to a show before practise." Fuji commented, beginning to slowly move over, curious as to who would begin a match with the buchou and coach absent – Tezuka would not be happy, that was for sure.

They drew closer, and Fuji explained for Lee's benefit, "The brown-haired boy with the green headband is Arai, this is his second year in the tennis club. His opponent, however…"

"Ryoma Echizen. This is an optimum chance for me to gain data." Inui finished before striding away from them and getting in a better position to record techniques and such of the players.

"Echizen, huh?" Fuji muttered, recognising the name and looking speculatively at the small green-haired first year with the ancient racket, already having a good idea of what had gone on to get the boy in that position.

"What?" Lee asked from where she stood beside him, having followed him to a spot across from where Eiji had apparently wandered off to upon growing bored with their previous conversation – the red-head currently seemed to be talking to a few first years with Momo.

"Watch closely, Lee." Fuji said ambiguously, himself turning his full attention onto the spontaneous match, already knowing that he would be watching the handicapped first year annihilate the cocky second year.

Seeing that Fuji was intensely watching the two on the court and recognising the stance of one who was dedicated and loved their sport fiercely from seeing Ron in that exact same position numerous times, she knew to follow his lead and be quiet.

She felt a lot like she had before she'd been able to witness a game of quidditch and had only relied on rather complicated explanations – that she was missing a fair bit of the point to the game, and a good few rules of what the players were able to do. The one saving grace was that, compared to the complicated rules and different balls involved (two of which were designed to attempt to murder the players in the process of the game) the game of tennis only required two players and one ball.

From what she gathered over the course of the game, it was unwise for the green-haired first year (and why had nobody found it odd that he had green hair of all things?) to be playing with the old racket because the strings were lose and thus made the ball hard to direct – which was bad, because he needed to hit it within the court and not out in the 'double lines' which were only used if there were two players on each side. The point of it was to get the ball passed the opponent four times (well, more if the other player managed to force a 'deuce' wherein the scores were even and they quibbled over 'advantage', where the last player who managed to get two balls past in a row won the 'set'). There were up to six sets in a game, although the match ended earlier if one player managed to win four and thus making it impossible for their opponent to win the match.

…At least, that's what she had gathered from some of the different conversations happening between the first years and the club members, who seemed to be making sure they understood the basics. She simplified it into 'you win a match if you get the ball past your opponent more' and decided to leave it like that.

She was surprised to be drawn into the game. After watching professional quidditch, a sport played at least 50 meters in the air and resting on the capture of a ball the size of a walnut – one that she knew intimately from her heydays as Seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team – she hadn't thought that a muggle sport would ever appeal to her again.

Tennis proved her wrong.

It was an interesting – and intense – battle of wills on a level and stage that she'd never seen before. She could see the methodical way that younger kid made his opponent's focus and confidence falter, made the boy crumble under his will and skills and, in this way at least, it starkly reminded her of the war, of how an army lived and breathed on not only its training and experience, but the convictions of the participant – if you believed that you were beaten, you were.

Usually, she went out of her way to avoid reminders of the war – she very much could not stand the sight of blood, the expression of pain that appeared on an injured person's face, the noises and sights that sometimes triggered flashbacks of the war… she could not stand the thought of being trapped and locked in her past, and she had mostly through sheer damned stubbornness and through a refusal to be drowned within her past experiences been able to avoid this fate.

But this. Tennis actually reminded her of it in a good way. The blood singing in your veins. Standing and laughing on a precipice between victory and defeat, with only your will power and ability to push on, to continue despite exhaustion and limits. And nobody had ever deemed her sane to take this thrill in the battle, in the act of it.

And it was to her understanding that this was a mere taste of what true, professional games were like, that it didn't even hold a candle to the elite of each school that met up for tournaments to qualify for, eventually, the National Championships.

Oh, she liked this. She might have to do something for someone to thank them for bringing tennis to her attention. Who exactly, though? Eh, she'd work that out later.

The sky had bleached yellow and it was obvious to every person on the courts that Ryoma had thoroughly cowed the annoying and arrogant Arai by the time a new person set foot on the courts.

Lee easily recognised Oishi and, after he finished commanding them to run laps at the buchou's behest, she stepped up to his side.

She smirked a little, watching them all run around and felling happy that no one was about to demand the same of her. "Tennis… is interesting."

Oishi removed his stern gaze from his running teammates and looked at her, a soft seriousness in his gaze, his eyes moving with the shared secret, seeming to understand without words what she had meant, even though she had muttered the thought to herself.

He smiled, and she thought of the game that she had witnessed that day, and smiled too.

Maybe, just maybe, she could at least learn to live with the abrupt change in her life.

…Maybe.

Well, she'd take a damn good swing at it anyway.


	4. All The Small Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Games are Serious, others are mostly hilarious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am very out of practise with Prince of Tennis, hopefully I got characterisation right after all this time - I hope the wait was worth it.

Lee ended up hanging around for the official practise, even though the members seemed to be doing nothing more than running through drills that she was somewhat familiar with thanks to her time training with the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

“Hurry up!” 

Lee valiantly stifled her own urge to snap to attention at Oishi’s yell to the tennis team, struggling against years of having hell-trainers screaming at her to go-go-go and not laze around like a whiney bitch. She rather thought that the boys on the courts were distracted enough that they’d miss her twitching at each successive order, but one could never be too careful – constant vigilance and all that.

She was lounging on what was traditionally the coach’s bench – or so she’d gathered – hands crossed under her head and lazily watching the activity from the corner of her eye. She still felt a little self-conscious about her skirt and the potential social faux pas she may or may not be committing, and resolved to get some kind of bike shorts to put on underneath the dratted thing to conserve her modesty – she was too used to loose, long clothing to comfortably don these clothes, they were very distracting. And god, didn’t she just sound ridiculous just then? Ah, well – one must conserve ones decency, especially when so little of it yet remained. 

“Line up!”

Pulled out of her idle musing, Lee turned to watch the court, curious as to the next stage of their training – how did one train to be a tennis player? Oishi lined them all up, and began swinging his racket around. The others copied him. He changed how he held it a few times, Lee guessed that he was demonstrating different swings, and then ordered them to complete all of the movements fifty times each, with each arm. 

Fuji was very much enjoying the havoc that he had wreaked through such a simple action of bringing Lee to the practise. Oishi was getting more and more flustered with his task of keeping the training session on track… he was encountering some problems keeping their fellow tennis players’ attention.

He smirked quietly to himself and wiped sweat off his forehead; this was as good as mocking Atobe, with less chance of himself being accused of ‘ill thought out actions’ by a very disapproving Tezuka. 

It was too bad that Tezuka and coach Ryuzaki were arranging the matchups for the Ranking Tournament this session, he could just imagine the coach trying to deal with them all… or, at least, he wanted to see what they would both do. As it was, Oishi was silently fighting a losing battle for attention between himself and Lee. 

Lee was winning – Fuji wanted to know if she had chosen to arrange herself so provocatively on purpose, or if his first instinct that she was unaware of the effect meant she truly had no idea (either way, he decided to add a few more reminders to be careful around the girl himself, in order to avoid his own trap).

The tennis players got a break at five thirty to use the taps and refill water bottles that had been emptied through necessity, and Fuji made his way over to Lee after ensuring that he’d have enough water for the second half. 

He raised an eyebrow upon seeing that, contrary to what he had predicted, she was not surrounded by his teammates. Instead she was sitting next to a most unlikely partner; Inui was sitting next to her and both heads were bent over the pages of the Data Player’s Little Black Book of information.

Curious. 

Fuji decided not to interrupt them immediately but to instead figure out what they could possibly be speaking about, so he carefully placed himself in their blind spot but within hearing distance. 

Inui’s spiked hair pressed against Lee’s blonde presented an interesting contrast, but Fuji was more interested in what the girl was saying… “Oh, I see, you added the tamarind and acesulphame potassium to substitute for caffeine to provide energy, but wouldn’t the kick be offsetting?”

Fuji could barely see half of Inui’s face from his position, but considering the conversation he strongly suspected that his glasses were flashing to accompany the unsettling half-smirk he could see the question elicited. “Yes, that would be correct.”

Fuji decided that the answering amused smirk he could spot on the section of Lee’s face that was visible from his position was his cue to break up what appeared to be a conversation of the scientific makeup of Inui Juice (and while he mostly ‘enjoyed’ the Juice for the entertaining reactions it brought out in the tennis club, he had absolutely no desire to learn what they contained) that was quickly devolving into something of an unholy alliance between his fellow Regular and latest interest. 

While one corner of his mind was wondering over how it seemed that every plan of his inevitably managed to backfire in strange ways, he cut into the conversation, “Lee-san! I am sorry that I haven’t been a very good friend for practise, but thank you for following through for your promise to attend. Your support has been… stimulating.”

Inui coughed into his hand at the ‘poor’ word choice, but Fuji caught the pinkish shade to the pale boy’s cheeks (confirming to Fuji once and for all that, no matter how logical and upright he made himself out to be, Inui was indisputably a hormonal teenager at heart and thus had his mind in the gutter. It had previously been a hotly contested debate among the Regulars for quite some time. Kawamura owed him money).

Lee’s reaction was also interesting. Fuji was aware that there was a very limited range of reactions such phrasing could provoke out of a member of the female species – namely, outrage, shyness, or answering provocation. Hopefully, it would provide Fuji with more of the picture of Lee’s temperament and shed some light on her actions throughout the day. He’d prefer to know if she was conscious of how her looks affected those around her. 

She had a good poker face, at least; “I’m glad I’ve not been a bother.”

Hmm. Fuji narrowed his eyes a bit more and scanned her face, which remained impassive. This was the same problem again; he couldn’t tell exactly what she meant the words to mean. Her tone of voice was loose enough that she could have meant that the way it sounded innocently, but there was a hint of something in her eyes that suggested she would not mind if it was taken to be banter in direct response to his own rather unsubtle dig at her presence. Her posture did not suggest one interpretation over the other, as she was already turning to sweep her gaze over the players congregated around the drinking taps. 

Lee, on her part, was enjoying the hell out of her decision to observe tennis practise. She’d spent the best part of an hour watching rows of muscly boys sweating and demonstrating their fitness (after she’d gotten over her own hang-ups over the new school uniform), spent the best part of ten minutes talking with the helpful boy she’d accosted in the morning for directions and discovering his fun new sport of apparently poisoning his teammates (without the actual prolonged sickness attached) and now she was having fun with the boy that had apparently decided to adopt her, like a puppy or something that he wanted to take with him everywhere. Not that she really had a notable problem with this, as he seemed to be intelligent and possessing a decent sense for chaos.

Not that any of that would mean she’d go easy on him, of course. Fucking with Fuji was going to be her new favourite pastime while she was stuck in middle school hell. Projecting ambiguity seemed to be the name of the game. 

Of course she couldn’t be unaware of the team's rather pronounced distraction (fuck, she’d have to be blind not to notice, plus she had more than enough experience spotting the effects of veela lure during the Triwizard Tournament even before the cursing thing had been attached to her. All this did not mean, however, that she had forgotten the basic rules of age-difference dating: half your age plus seven is alright, anything less is inadvisable. She was technically twenty-eight, so the youngest she should be dating is twenty-one year olds. Of course, considering fifteen is too young for that, she would be comfortable with dating seventeen or eighteen year olds – as far as she was concerned, not sticking to those guidelines would be too much like paedophilia, and thus unacceptable. Even if they wouldn’t know it, she would. These kids were firmly under the age limit for this ride. Lee mentally recoiled from her own poor wording and refocused back on Fuji. 

“…I’m glad you’ve been getting along with Lee-san, Inui; thank you for making an effort to befriend her.” Fuji’s eyes were closed and curved into half-moon shapes, which he was using to project an air of complacent amiability. Lee didn’t think she imagined the undertone of the devil in his voice; honestly, he was giving her flashbacks of Fred and George pretending innocence before a prank. 

“It was no trouble, Fuji, Lee-san has… interesting ideas.” The boy adjusted the thick frames further up his nose and thumbed his book meaningfully at this, and Lee thought it was an equal toss-up between him thinking typical teenage-boy things and her suggestion that some bugs were edible and thus perfectly safe ingredients for his Inui Juice. 

Fuji just seemed to pause for a split-second there, and Lee guessed that only a very observant individual would even notice such a miniscule break in his countenance before he directed his next sentence in her direction, “I’m glad that you seem to be having a good time.”

“Yes, everyone’s been perfectly welcoming and, well, I just want to say that I’m glad you invited me to come, Fuji – from that match we saw earlier, I think I’ll like learning tennis from you.”

Fuji’s smile widened a little at that, a seeming natural movement that was a touch smug. Lee guessed he deserved his moment of victory, he did put quite a bit of effort into getting her to the tennis courts. “Anyway, it looks like Oishi – that’s his name, yes? – is calling you boys back to practise. It’s late enough that I probably have to get home, so I’ll see you all tomorrow – we can talk more.”

Fuji seemed to falter for a second – he had probably been counting on the late hour after practise as an excuse to walk her home and thus have more time to try and get a handle on her personality, if his reaction spoke for anything. She didn’t feel like sticking around like a pretty display piece for much longer tonight though – she had been compiling a list of arguments for Hermione and Ron all day and needed to face up to round two of the ‘Why I Shouldn’t Be Around Middle Schools or Kids In General Anyway’ debate. At least when she inevitably lost, she now had an amusing companion that would happily create chaos for her amusement (without being instructed, although she had Plans to assist once fucking with his mind became boring).

“Fuji! Inui! We’re Waiting!” Oishi shouted in the distance at her companions. Inui nodded a goodbye and stowed his book, jogging over to the congregation of boys under the newly light floodlights. 

Fuji conceded to his inability to convince her to stay further with grace and settled for a polite goodbye, expressing his own anticipation of teaching her tennis at a later date.

Lee waved him off and collected her belongings, swinging her bag over her shoulder on the way to the gate. She didn’t quite manage to leave quietly, considering she was the recipient of quite a bit of attention of a fairly steady level and shouts of goodbye chased her out.

She got far enough away to avoid cameras and apparated back to the home base in Japan, feeling actually pretty good despite the rather shaky start to the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, just adding this in: I have (finally) both gotten a tumblr and very recently actually started to use it. Follow me, badger me for updates, give me ideas, whatever - catch up to me at http://ailes-de-cire.tumblr.com/ --- I'll be looking forward to hearing from people :)


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